FCC gives ISPs another $563M to build rural-broadband networks

arstechnica.com

5 pointsErrorcod35 comments

Good luck. I would be happy with even two nines of reliability and 5mb down and 1.5 up. But here I am, a whole hour outside a top 30 metro area, with only one internet option that isn't broadband or hughesnet. Rural people are the forgoten population in the tech progress.

Again?

They did this regularly with the telecoms, too.

At this point it's just a gift to the corporations, no one anywhere believes they'll actually build rural broadband with it.

In northwestern Kansas, we got gigabit fiber laid everywhere, thanks to a rider to the hurricane Katrina relief bill.

So you're saying the solution to this problem is political pork?

The rider was available for any telecommunications company in the US to apply for grants. Our local one did a bunch of homework and got several hundred million on their grant. Of course, they also used the money to lay the fiber, instead of paying CEO bonuses or shareholder dividends.

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